THE MASTERMIND AU MEME

[milliondollarpipes]

THE MASTERMIND AU
AMBIDEX EDITION

With Round 3 now over, it's about time we had the mastermind meme!

To those who aren't familiar, this is essentially an AU where your character is the one responsible for Round 3's Mutual Killing Game, and all of the carnage that came with it, from the kidnapping to the motives to the trials to the executions! And now, they have chosen to reveal themselves before the remaining members of their class at the final trial!

As such, you are free to play around with this as much as you would like; did your character make a contract with Kyuubey, or did your character put everyone in the Killing Game for a different reason? What is your character's motivation for bringing despair? What do they intend to get out of this seemingly senseless killing? And what does the rest of the class have to do to stop the madness and go home?

There's probably going to be quite a bit of AUing from your character's original canon happening here to make them into the best harbingers of despair they can be, so feel free to go as nuts with it as you want to! And, of course, feel free to tag others with your character's reaction to their classmate's big reveal; it doesn't matter whether or not your character made it to endgame, have fun and mix up the survivor pool as much as you'd like!

Oh, and feel free to describe your character's sweet new Monobear-themed duds, too!!

Original meme text borrowed and modified from loveisanopendoor!

Comments

[callbacks]

[Dave shuts his mouth again then.]

...I thought you cared, man.

[milliondollarpipes]

[Harvey takes a long draw of his cigarette, staring Dave down in silence.]

I thought that, too. Maybe I did. It's been a long time.

[He doesn't move, but as he speaks his shadow twists behind him, casting upwards against the window to black out a column of stars. The shape of elongated fingers falls across Harvey's shoulder.]

But that don't matter. All my life, I've always ended up hurting the people I care about. Why would this be any different?

[callbacks]

[Okay, feelings jam is on hold now because THAT SURE APPEARS TO BE A THING THAT IS HAPPENING.]

What--what is that.

[milliondollarpipes]

[Harvey turns slightly to look at it, then glances at Dave with narrowed eyes.]

You can see that?

[callbacks]

Yyyyyyessss? Am I not supposed to. Is it like a bad omen thing, do I have to email it to ten of my friends before midnight.

[milliondollarpipes]

[Harvey just stares at him for a long moment.]

...do you hear it, too?

[callbacks]

...Does it sing.

[milliondollarpipes]

Sing?

[Harvey lets out a noise that sounds like it should be laughter, but really isn't.]

Nothing sings up here anymore, kid.

[callbacks]

See, normally I'd find something to celebrate in that, but actually I'm gathering from context that that's probably a bad thing.

[Dave watches the shadow, then slowly moves back to Harvey's face, like answers are something written, not asked for.]

Mr. Finevoice, I--I don't get it. Why...just. Why?

[milliondollarpipes]

[Harvey meets his gaze hollowly, but only for a few seconds before he looks away.]

Ain't that what you're here to figure out?

[And speaking of, remember that investigation that totally happened? Yeah.]

[callbacks]

[Dave's quiet for a while before his gaze flicks to the shadow again.]

That's...that's a shade. Isn't it?

[milliondollarpipes]

[Harvey's gaze flicks up to it as well, and he nods.]

Yeah, it is.

[callbacks]

But you didn't make those. Someone else did. The J guy. His handwriting was different from yours.

[milliondollarpipes]

Right again.

[Harvey turns now to study Dave's face in turn.] You're good at this, kid.

[callbacks]

If you picked us out on purpose to play this shit out, then you already knew I would be. I was basically bred for this.

[Homestuck doesn't fuck around. Or, okay, it does, but it fucks around in pretty much exactly this fashion.]

...Or, maybe you didn't? You didn't have as much on us as the others.

[milliondollarpipes]

...no. No, I wouldn'tve done it like this. The other games I ran were different. Not like this.

[callbacks]

...

What's different about this one.

[He remembers: None of the teens have real execution plans; not even Dave, who's killed before, who'd be so easy to break...]

[milliondollarpipes]

Those bastards from before deserved it.

[callbacks]

Ssssooooo, you brought us here but you don't think we deserve it.

[milliondollarpipes]

Of...of course you don't, that's not -

[Harvey's face tightens in pain for a moment, and he presses a hand to the spot on his temple where a shadowy tendril is shifting.]

The murderers did, they would've killed all of you to...ha, but they never would've come to that if it weren't for me...

[callbacks]

[That thing is creepy. It's really creepy. It reminds him too much of things that whisper in the void, just outside the fringes of his nightmares.]

...The murderers? The...people in the games before us?

[milliondollarpipes]

No - yes, them too! I didn't even know about any of this shit before them! Why - it's -

[Harvey sits down heavily in his chair, covering his face with his hands for a moment as the shadows darken around him. His shoulders shake, but there's no tears visible when he moves them away again.]

It's all my fault. I shouldn't blame anyone else.

[callbacks]

Do you? Blame someone else, I mean.

[Dave's...lost his sense of understanding literally anything about what's going on. Except for the shade. He knows that's bad news.]

Who're the murderers you meant?

[milliondollarpipes]

It doesn't matter now.

[Whatever that outburst was, the emotion seems to have drained out of him.]

Come on, kid. It's the final exam. Let's just get this over with.

[callbacks]

[Muttered mutinously:] Maybe I would actually know what that means if I'd ever been to school.

[But really, that's neither here nor there.]

If you don't think we deserve it, then. Why. That wasn't in your fucking notes, dude.